Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1887-03-05

branches, and from the dark shadows the
bushes made down by the gate another and
living shadow detached itself. It hesitatcd
and it turned toward the house. Not Joe
why, yes, Joe, surely! 'Viney threw on
her dress and crept to the door in her
stocking feet and softly opened it. What
could he want? Had anything gone
wrongs She stepped swiftly; only she
must be careful not to wake her father
and Till. Tho floor creaked under her
weight, light as it was. She felt her way
down the two flights of steep, stiff stairs.
should come at this time of night. When
sound Of hard, quick breathing in the
she felt for the bolt Of the door. But it had
been drawn back already. As she lifted the
heavy wooden latch and let in q ray of
pale moonlight, Joe stole out from behind
the black column Of the porch and Till had
fleeing upstairs.
It was all done in a minute. All in the
same second it seemed to her, too, that she
heard her fathers voice give a yell like that
of a wild beast, and knew that he had seen
Joe outside and caught his wife as she ran
wildly up. Herself he could not see, for
she had retreated unconsciously behind the
heavy door in opening it.
They had always said she was slow of
wit and 'Viney, humbly, had believed it.
Perhaps she was. Yet now her action was
as swift as thought.
"Oh, father, father!' she cried. And,
as once before, she said: "He come for ME!
Joe come for me?"
She was up the stairs and by the kneeling
woman's side and her fathers, as the words
left her lips.
''Is that true! Is it another of your lies?''
Saunders shrieked.
mo, no." gasped Till, gathering up the
masses of her hair, that had come down
with instructive, trembling fingers. "It's
true what she says. He come for her-for
Laviney."
"Then git, you!" and old Saunders, with
awful words that turned the girl hot and
cold, had her by the shoulder and down
the stairs and then pushed her out and
closed the door behind her.
"Father! father" But there was no re-
spouse. Joe had gone, fled fast, forever.
And 'Viney stood there paralyzed. After
that first effort she made no other. She
could not explain. She know her father
and she must go-somewhere. He would
never believe her-no, never. And all would
know he had turned her out, all would know
what he had thought Of her, what words he
had said. But even that was nothing.
Something more awful than that had hap
pened. Something had died within her.
Her dream-she had dreamed in the moon
light at her attic window-her dream of
Joe's love and his faith! That had died.
And Till-Till, her fathers wifel
She stumbled more than she walked down
the garden path to the gate and out upon
the lane. The heavy dews drenched her
feet through her cotton stockings. In q
little while her thin dress, her hair, were
damp with it. She did not know. The
moon was travelling westward and shone on
the white road and the fields with a CLASSY
and spectral light like that of another
planet, except that 'Viney did not know Of
such things as planets.
There was a dreadful weight in her head,
q dreadful humming; a sensation as of
having been struck by something. She did
not know how far she had walked through
the silent country, over the silvered roads.
The moon was going down. A leaden
WEAKNESS was creeping into her limbs, her
eyelids dropped; q numbness of great sleep
overcame her. She crawled under the
protecting branches of a tangled hedge
about an apple orchard and let her head
drop in the hollow of her arms
When she woke there was no sun yet,
but a chill gray light of breaking dawn.
At first, 'Viney did not know where she was.
But oh, the returning consciousness of the
burden mercifully dropped from the spirit
in sleepi With the grip ut her heart
'Viney started to her feet like a hunted
Joe's treachery and Til-Oh,
Till! This was the maddening thought.
Not that she wa ~roofless, homeless, penni-
less. She was running, running fast as her
feet would carry her, over the brambles
and stubble and the rocks that pierced
through tho surface of the wet fields, down.
ward where the river flowed swift, broad
and gray, with the white mist Of dawn
shrouding its silent course. And there
was a sudden plunge. They said after
ward that 'Viney had lost her wits-poor,
dull, plain 'Viney, who had never had much
to lose. Perhaps they were right. Per-
haps she had.-Evelyn Thorpe in New
York Mercury.